Metamagic Adept for a Lore Bard?

[meandean]

I'm evaluating the possibility of the Metamagic Adept feat for a Lore Bard. It's interesting to ponder, because Metamagic would work so much differently for Bards than it does for Sorcerers. My first-look evaluation of each option:

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Careful: Costs 1 sorcery point (SP), so it's an option. Would be very useful for hypnotic pattern, fear, and synaptic static. That's probably about it, but hypnotic pattern might well be your go-to spell, especially if you have an Instrument of the Bards.

Distant: Costs 1 SP. The only touch attack spell I see on the Bard list is bestow curse, which to be fair does get good eventually, so now you can cast that a lot easier as someone who doesn't want to get into melee. Cure wounds of course is touch, if that does anything for you. There's the intriguing interaction where you can upcast a touch-range buff (e.g. invisibility, heroism) without having to have each team member stand next to you... intriguing, but not exactly vital. Teleport also becomes an easier "GTFO" button to press. You have several combat spells with 30' range that it'd be nice to be able to cast at 60' instead. Dimension door becomes 1,000', which is bananas. By RAW, counterspell is unaffected, but maybe you can get your DM to rule that it should be, because that doesn't make any sense. That'd make a very big difference for a Bard.

Empowered: Costs 1 SP, but a Bard doesn't need it.

Extended: Costs 1 SP. With respect to your charm/dominate/suggestion spells, it's not an order of magnitude -- it wouldn't normally make sense that 1 minute/hour/day wouldn't be enough to get the person/thing to do what you want, and yet 2 minutes/hours/days would be. Disguise self and various buffs (enhance ability, tongues, longstrider) would be more plausible, but even with those, I'm still not sure how often you need 2 hours instead of 1. Many Lore Bards take aura of vitality as a Magical Secret, so you could potentially get twice as much out-of-combat healing out of that. Or you can Extend long-lasting, non-concentration buffs into the next day, which means... well, aid, for sure. Antipathy/sympathy becomes 20 days rather than 10, but are you still going to be fighting the same type of creatures 11 days from now that you are now? (Also, how many Bards even take that spell?) You could theoretically Extend foresight with tremendous results, but... if you're about to go to sleep and still have a 9th-level slot left, shouldn't you be casting wish? I imagine Extended doesn't apply at all to heroes' feast, whose duration is "instantaneous", but that'd be hilarious.

Heightened: Costs 3 SP, so not an option.

Quickened: Costs 2 SP, which is all you have, and... what exactly are you gonna do with the action you freed up? Cast vicious mockery? Shoot someone once with a light crossbow? Dodge? Other than polymorph (or telekinesis if you took it as a Magical Secret, a reasonable choice for a Lore Bard), seems like this is hardly ever gonna be of any use to you.

Seeking: Costs 2 SP. According to my D&D Beyond search, literally the only Bard spell this would apply to is Mordenkainen's sword. So, no.

Subtle: Costs 1 SP. The type of thing where its usefulness depends entirely on the DM and playstyle. If it is the right DM/playstyle, it could be exceedingly useful, given what a Bard does.

Transmuted: Costs 1 SP. Very little relevance to Bards.

Twinned: Costs 1 SP per spell level, so you'd only be able to do it with 1st or 2nd level spells. That'd be awesome if you got it right away -- twinned healing word, dissonant whispers, Tasha's hideous laughter, and command would be amazing early on. 2nd level has less to offer that you can't just get by upcasting, or in the case of suggestion, getting the better version of the spell later. It seems rare that you'd need enhance ability on exactly two people, but I guess maybe it could be for Stealth checks for your two plate-mail wearers, or something. Enlarge/reduce has a lot of potential, and lesser restoration becomes a much better use of your action. The thing is that, by the time you get around to this feat, you blew past 1st/2nd-level spells a long time ago. Still, many of these spells do scale exceptionally well.

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Overall, it seems like none of these uses is an obvious game-changer... but if you add them all up, you could really have something... but then again, it's not like you're getting all of these options, you have to choose two. It's tough for me to evaluate.

Obviously, in terms of Bard ASIs, you want to max Charisma first, and get something to help your concentration. So we're likely not even considering Metamagic Adept until late-game, or maybe mid-game if you rolled for stats and did well, or fully optimized with Tasha's point buy. Then you're weighing it against Inspiring Leader, Lucky, Telekinetic, Fey Touched, etc. Fey Touched, at least, shares the Twinned issue that it's giving you low-level spells and you're getting it late. Probably how competitive Metamagic Adept is depends mostly on how useful Subtle will be for you, and to a lesser extent, the Distant counterspell ruling, and/or how much you need Careful hypnotic pattern.

What do y'all think?

[shipiaozi]

Metamagic Adept is a very weak feat, 2 point per long rest is far not enough.

The only viable choice is Extended, used Foresight before rest and bring it to next day, could worth it if your DM allow.

[MrCharlie]

I'm evaluating the possibility of the Metamagic Adept feat for a Lore Bard. It's interesting to ponder, because Metamagic would work so much differently for Bards than it does for Sorcerers. My first-look evaluation of each option:

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Careful: Costs 1 sorcery point (SP), so it's an option. Would be very useful for hypnotic pattern, fear, and synaptic static. That's probably about it, but hypnotic pattern might well be your go-to spell, especially if you have an Instrument of the Bards.

Distant: Costs 1 SP. The only offensive touch spell I see on the Bard list is bestow curse, which to be fair does get good eventually, so now you can cast that a lot easier as someone who doesn't want to get into melee. Cure wounds of course is touch, if that does anything for you. There's the intriguing interaction where you can upcast a touch-range buff (e.g. invisibility, heroism) without having to have each team member stand next to you... intriguing, but not exactly vital. Teleport also becomes an easier "GTFO" button to press. You have several combat spells with 30' range that it'd be nice to be able to cast at 60' instead. Dimension door becomes 1,000', which is bananas. By RAW, counterspell is unaffected, but maybe you can get your DM to rule that it should be, because that doesn't make any sense. That'd make a very big difference for a Bard.

Empowered: Costs 1 SP, but a Bard doesn't need it.

Extended: Costs 1 SP. With respect to your charm/dominate/suggestion spells, it's not an order of magnitude -- it wouldn't normally make sense that 1 minute/hour/day wouldn't be enough to get the person/thing to do what you want, and yet 2 minutes/hours/days would be. Disguise self and various buffs (enhance ability, tongues, longstrider) would be more plausible, but even with those, I'm still not sure how often you need 2 hours instead of 1. Many Lore Bards take aura of vitality as a Magical Secret, so you could potentially get twice as much out-of-combat healing out of that. Or you can Extend long-lasting, non-concentration buffs into the next day, which means... well, aid, for sure. Antipathy/sympathy becomes 20 days rather than 10, and most likely you'll do some adventuring in those extra 10 days so you'll get a lot out of it, but seriously, did you take that spell? (I guess if you did get Extended, maybe you should.) You could theoretically Extend foresight with tremendous results, but... if you're about to go to sleep and still have a 9th-level slot left, shouldn't you be casting wish? I imagine Extended doesn't apply at all to heroes' feast, whose duration is "instantaneous", but that'd be hilarious.

Heightened: Costs 3 SP, so not an option.

Quickened: Costs 2 SP, which is all you have, and... what exactly are you gonna do with the action you freed up? Cast vicious mockery? Shoot someone once with a light crossbow? Dodge? Other than polymorph (or telekinesis if you took it as a Magical Secret, a reasonable choice for a Lore Bard), seems like this is hardly ever gonna be of any use to you.

Seeking: Costs 2 SP. According to my D&D Beyond search, literally the only Bard spell this would apply to is Mordenkainen's sword. So, no.

Subtle: Costs 1 SP. The type of thing where its usefulness depends entirely on the DM and playstyle. If it is the right DM/playstyle, it could be exceedingly useful, given what a Bard does.

Transmuted: Costs 1 SP. Very little relevance to Bards.

Twinned: Costs 1 SP per spell level, so you'd only be able to do it with 1st or 2nd level spells. That'd be awesome if you got it right away -- twinned healing word, dissonant whispers, Tasha's hideous laughter, and command would be amazing early on. 2nd level has less to offer that you can't just get by upcasting, or in the case of suggestion, getting the better version of the spell later. It seems rare that you'd need enhance ability on exactly two people, but I guess maybe it could be for Stealth checks for your two plate-mail wearers, or something. Enlarge/reduce has a lot of potential, and lesser restoration becomes a much better use of your action. The thing is that, by the time you get around to this feat, you blew past 1st/2nd-level spells a long time ago. Still, many of these spells do scale exceptionally well.

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Overall, it seems like none of these uses is an obvious game-changer... but if you add them all up, you could really have something... but then again, it's not like you're getting all of these options, you have to choose two. It's tough for me to evaluate.

Obviously, in terms of Bard ASIs, you want to max Charisma first, and get something to help your concentration. So we're likely not even considering Metamagic Adept until late-game, or maybe mid-game if you rolled for stats and did well, or fully optimized with Tasha's point buy. Then you're weighing it against Inspiring Leader, Fey Touched, Lucky, etc. Fey Touched, at least, shares the Twinned issue that it's giving you low-level spells and you're getting it late. Probably how competitive Metamagic Adept is depends mostly on how useful Subtle will be for you, and to a lesser extent, the Distant counterspell ruling, and/or how much you need Careful hypnotic pattern.

What do y'all think?

Twinned spells is the best choice at tier 1 if or tier 2. In particular it's exceptional at tier 1, where you basically just get double duty out of all your slots. After tier 2 it's bad-but you can swap it (probably at level 8, or even level 4 if you got it at level 1 via racial feats).

Distant isn't really worth it, it's super niche.

Empowered is similarly a niche-the damage is mediocre and not really relevant to bards, whom only deal damage incidentally to their main spell effects.

Careful and subtle are probably on the same tier, as they are both useful in certain campaigns. Careful is likely better if your the only caster in a melee beef-fest or a huge party, and subtle is better if you are in the opposite (because subtly casting spells to avoid combat is more engaging, you have more time to act without overriding people in the party). Careful is also more valuable at higher levels where you have more AOE spells.

Extended is very good with the right spell selection, maybe even game breaking. In the right circumstances long duration buffs can be extended into the next day-and as a Bard, you can pick literally any of those long duration buffs. The winners are Aid, Death Ward, and Foresight. The nice part is that exactly when twinned stops being useful extended becomes useful.

So in totality I'd take twinned and probably subtle spell if I could take it at 1st level, switch to twinned and careful at level 4, and switch to careful and extended and level 8+.

The key is if you want to spend a feat and possibly magical secrets to make use of extended spell. If you can pull off the tricks you want it's probably worth it, but you need the right DM and campaign to do so. If long rests before entering a dungeon are extremely uncommon then using extended Aid or Death Ward or Foresight spells won't happen very often. You might still use extended free spells every once in a blue moon when you have a slow adventuring day, but 2 careful spells probably isn'tworth it. 2 free Aid or Death words or Foresights is.

[MrCharlie]

Metamagic Adept is a very weak feat, 2 point per long rest is far not enough.

The only viable choice is Extended, used Foresight before rest and bring it to next day, could worth it if your DM allow.

Twinned is worth it when you have two spells and getting double duty is worth it, careful is potentially worth it when you only cast two AOE spells a day, and not hitting allies is worth it.

Combined with the fact that extended spell works as early as tier 2 with Aid and Death Ward, there is a case for this feat on Bards or Clerics.

[Gunndykol]

Depends on long term goals for character. I am considering the same thing, but I also know that we plan on playing our campaign all the way to 20 with a 5th act being a level 20 epilogue.

Since bard capstone is crap, I am thinking of taking 2 levels of Abundant Mind sorc anyway.

With 2 more metamagics and 4 spell points + the ability to convert points and slots, it becomes a much more useful idea. And being able to swap duplicate spells from the bonus spells list for other sorc spells, can help fill out some nice lower level spells to not have to use 6th level magical secrets on.

As with most decisions, you have to consider long term goals/plans and how those can improve or hinder early game choices.

[MrCharlie]

Careful is a great choice, but situational. Not every combat is gonna require it.

Distant is even more situational.

Extended is actually one of the few choices worth a feat, mostly for extended aid and death ward. Stuff like foresight does crop up-but remember, Extended spell caps out at 24 hours. The key here is that, if you know the right spells, Extended spell is always a good use of the feat. No party will say no to extended aid.

(Also, extended aura of vitality is 40d6 healing for a 3rd level slot, easily the best sustained magical healing by an order of magnitude, literally).

Oh, and extended is actually quite good for summon spells, if you invest some effort in keeping the summon alive.

Twinned is good if you take it as a variant human or custom lineage feat, which is perfectly fine, but honestly, I'd rather have Resilient CON, Warcaster, or Inspiring Leader. Otherwise the only use is in twinning healing word spells or something, which is firmly mediocre in high tiers.

Subtle is also highly situational, although it is a different kind of situational. Because it offers you plot-changing powers, it's hard to evaluate.

Overall, I'd almost always go with extended spell, and either twinned (if it's a low-level one-shot), subtle (intrigue heavy campaign), or careful (combat oriented campaign).

[stoutstien]

Really comes down to what you tend to do as a bard and if you are looking for some additional flexibility to counter your limited spells known or just doubling down on your primary area of focus.
Buff/debuff and healing will get milage out of twin and extend. Someone pointing out AoV already but it can't be over stated how power that is in a time crunch as a HP recovery tool. The more focus your table has on time in general the better extend gets.

Having both magic secrets and some limited metamagic options is very customizable to your PC. Very fitting for bards.

[Hael]

IMO Metamagic adept is a late game feat. Its best use is as a spell slot multiplier with extended (which isn’t worth early, but becomes insane when its lvl6+ slots), as well as save the game heroics with subtle counterspell or subtle social spells.

[lall]

Agree with Hael. My lore bard will take it at level 19. Extended will be an added bonus, e.g. for Foresight. Primary motivation is Subtle for survivability. 100 wizards teleport to my location. Assuming I’m conscious, Alert (taken earlier) prevents surprise. My bard will be decent in initiative between Alert, 16 DEX, Jack of All Trades, and Peerless Skill. So it’s just a matter of Word of Recalling to one of my Demiplanes. Subtle solves Counterspell.

[Keravath]

Depends on long term goals for character. I am considering the same thing, but I also know that we plan on playing our campaign all the way to 20 with a 5th act being a level 20 epilogue.

Since bard capstone is crap, I am thinking of taking 2 levels of Abundant Mind sorc anyway.

With 2 more metamagics and 4 spell points + the ability to convert points and slots, it becomes a much more useful idea. And being able to swap duplicate spells from the bonus spells list for other sorc spells, can help fill out some nice lower level spells to not have to use 6th level magical secrets on.

As with most decisions, you have to consider long term goals/plans and how those can improve or hinder early game choices.

Meta Magic requires 3rd level of sorcerer ... so all 2 levels gets you is an additional 2 sorcery points. Not that much value in my opinion.

Personally, since you only have 2 sorcery points for the entire day, I'd say twinning a level 1 spell twice isn't worth much. If I had to choose I would probably go for subtle since there are a number of bard spells (and possible magical secrets - especially spells like suggestion, enemies abound or mass suggestion among others) that could have much greater impact if cast using subtle since the opponents don't know a spell was cast AND it allows casting in social or diplomatic situations.

However, in general, I think there are much better feat choices than metamagic adept.

[MrCharlie]

Meta Magic requires 3rd level of sorcerer ... so all 2 levels gets you is an additional 2 sorcery points. Not that much value in my opinion.

Two levels does grant you the ability to recharge the sorcery points for your feats metamagic uses, so it's still valuable. Converting 1st level or 2nd level spells into sorcery points can be worth it-there are a lot of situations where an extended 3rd or 4th level spell is worth several 1st or 2nd level ones.

[tokek]

I have used this on a late game Warlock and that was with the intention of in the end game switching to Sorcerer for 3 levels after getting that precious 9th level spell. It worked very well.

Quickened is a one-shot per day but its all about the action economy, one quickened True Polymorph gives you the jump on the enemy that they will probably never recover from because you get a full action out of your new form before they have any chance to respond. So quickened on Polymorph or True Polymorph definitely has a worthwhile niche because its a big immediate impact that might shift the whole encounter in your favour. Similarly something like Tenser's Transormation when quickened lets you attack right away on the same turn. In general to see powerful ways to use this I'd look at spells that grant you some powerful action that is itself not casting another spell, those spells kick into the encounter a whole turn earlier which can be a big deal.

Subtle wins Counterspell wars. Sure its valuable in social situations and a Subtle Mass Suggestion is a wondrous thing but that time it saved the character and turned a huge epic battle - that was a subtle counterspell which prevented the enemy Archmage form countering it in turn.

There are certainly niche case for the others once you have big powerful spells going on but those were the ones I came away glad I had taken.

Twinned is very good at lower level especially on Dissonant Whispers but I think by late tier-2 you have better things to be doing with your action usually.

[SharkForce]

if you're only getting 2 metamagic points per day, you'll want to choose metamagic that is very impactful when it is used, but not necessarily something you're going to expect to use often.

from my perspective, that points to careful and subtle. often, you can get around the limitations of either of them. but when they are useful, they are *very* useful.

there are a few spells where careful spell can potentially make a big difference on certain spells if everyone is all jumbled up in a group (hypnotic pattern and fear, for example, as well as confusion which works regardless of status immunities), but ideally most of the time you're able to make it work with simple positioning. with that said, I don't think that it's too unreasonable to imagine that once or twice in a day you will be in a situation where you can add an extra enemy or two to your AoE because you don't need to worry about hitting your allies. this can be a major difference in the overall effectiveness of your spells. at very high levels, a careful wish spell that generates a symbol effect can be highly potent (though do remember, the devs have clarified that they intended careful to only work on the very first save, and even then only if it is immediate; according to their version careful web does absolutely nothing, and a more generous "only works on the first save" definition would still need your own party needs to get out of the symbol area sooner rather than later).

subtle you won't need too often, but in the situation where you need it the ability is indispensable; underwater, in a silenced area, facing an enemy that can counterspell, captured with hands tied, sneaking around, in a social situation where you can't be seen casting a spell, that sort of thing. none of these are constantly needed, but when the situation comes up it can be the difference between being able to act at all vs being unable to do anything.

extend would be my alternate suggestion if you really don't think you can make use of one of the other two. that said, I don't see it as a huge benefit to be able to, say, extend an aid spell from the previous day. yes, you'll still have 8 hours after a long rest is done, but you can only keep doing it as long as adventuring days don't need your full allowance of resources, and... but if you don't need your full allowance of resources, you can just use the resources on the day of the adventure anyways. it's buying you one day only, unless you can afford to take downtime days. on the other hand, getting 2 hours out of freedom of movement is as good as doubling that spell slot for a single sorcery point in the right situation (specifically, a situation where you need 2 consecutive hours worth of freedom of movement). additionally, check with your DM, sometimes it might be interpreted in other beneficial ways; for example, you might be able to increase the amount of time modify memory will let you work with, depending on whether your DM considers that a duration or not.

[Gunndykol]

Subtle/Careful are the two options I chose for my Lore Bard initially at 8th level which I play as a mind mage type. Two uses of them per day isn't much, but in a campaign heavy with kingdom building and politics, Subtle can be VERY useful when you are manipulating the pieces on the board so to speak.

As I stated before, I plan on going 2 levels of Ab Mind Sorc as well to further play into the mind mage theme. That gives me 4 total points and the ability to convert spell slots to make more if need be. It also gives me plenty of time between now and level 20 to decide whether I really care about 18th level magical secrets or if I want to just take a third level in sorc and pick up 2 more metamagic's.

Wish is amazing and all, but I'm just not sure I really feel it's a "must have" spell as most people do. Especially considering there is a Wizard in the party that will almost certainly have it as well (and two levels sooner due to my 2 levels of sorc dip). Without Wish, then Extend Foresight at the end of any day that hasn't required use of my 9th level spell slot is pretty much a no brainer as well as possibly an Extended 8th level Aid.

[Kane0]

Seconding Subtle and Careful.
Empower is another solid, cheap option but Bards don't get much in the way of blasts to use it on.
Extend can be worth it if you take the right spells for it to work with, but generally takes more planning and taking advantage of overnight spells.

[diplomancer]

I'd only get it at 16th level, planning on taking 2 levels of sorcerer at 19th and 20th. 2 SP is really very little, but with Flexible Casting becomes quite interesting. Since I'm only taking it that late, I'd get Extend and either Subtle or Careful depending on my experience thus far.

[follacchioso]

It depends on your selection of spells. Bards have a limited number of spells known and only some of them may be valid for meta magic options.

My favourites are Subtle Spells and Distant. I usually play in PvP arenas, and fighting against monster may require a different playing style.

Subtle can be a life safer when you need to teleport away and you don't want to be counter spelled. It can also excel in social situations where you want to read thoughts or charm without being detected. It only costs 1 sorcery point, so you can do it twice per long rest.

Distant is also great to surprise other enemies, when they believe to be safely out of range for your spells. Surprise them with a Feeblemind from 300' of distance, for example. Being able to cast Touch spell at a distance is also useful. However it depends on your spell selection, as not all spells gain a tactical advantage from this.

Extend is another great choice. It's more about saving resources and spell slots, than surprising the opponent with a metamagic trick. Foresight for 16 hours is undeniably useful.

I would steer away from Twinned, as it is too expensive for Metamagic Adept.

Multiclassing as Sorcerer has some good advantages but you miss out on high level spells, I would put at most one level in it.

[Gunndykol]

Multiclassing as Sorcerer has some good advantages but you miss out on high level spells, I would put at most one level in it.

After 17, the only other spells you gain is 2 more magical secrets at 18. You reach 22 spells known at 18, and nothing beyond that. So you really don't miss out on anything with 2 levels or sorc vs 1 (unless you need that last level 19 ASI). With so few 8th and 9th level spell slots, those two spells at 18th are usually very situational compared to using them for existing bard spells.

Really just depends on if you are looking to add more options to your character at the end or if you're looking to enhance what you already can do.